


all seasons, at all hours, and in all places

by Gwerfel



Series: Slimy things did crawl [3]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Bugs & Insects, Descent into Madness, Horror, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Rats, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:06:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23485768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gwerfel/pseuds/Gwerfel
Summary: Lt. Irving contends with the vermin on Terror while he tries to track down Mr Hickey.
Relationships: Cornelius Hickey/Sgt Solomon Tozer
Series: Slimy things did crawl [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885081
Comments: 15
Kudos: 37





	all seasons, at all hours, and in all places

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as one thing, then came together in such a chaotic way it turned into another thing. 
> 
> Warnings in end notes.
> 
> Thank you so much Kt_fairy for reading and liking this!

_ “In Westminster, not long ago, _

_ There lived a rat-catcher's daughter _

_ She was not born in Westminster, _

_ But on t'other side of the water…” _

“Manson, be quiet.”

“Sorry, Lieutenant Irving,” Manson touches his forelock and bobs his great soft head, still smiling. He looks back down at the floor and continues swabbing, sweeping the mop this way and that across the empty, listing galley. 

“Where is Mr Hickey?”

“Don’t know, sir.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Yes, Lieutenant Irving,” he nods slowly again, still grinning - it is disrespectful, Irving has told him that before, all his smirking and sneering. While Manson is a strapping young man and a diligent worker, there are some lessons he cannot seem to learn. “I ain’t seen Cornelius since four bells this morning.”

Irked by Manson’s indiscriminate good mood, Irving should like to say something more, but the seaman is doing nothing worth reprimanding, and John reminds himself that he is an idiot, after all.  _ There but for the grace of God _ . Besides, of the few men who chose to remain on Terror after the night Lady Silence was apprehended, Manson is the very least of John’s troubles.

He continues forward, through the galley and towards the quiet and shadowy fo’c’sle, once again in search of Mr Hickey. It is ridiculous that he cannot find one man on a ship now almost empty. This duty is beneath him, he ought to send a boy, or a steward to ferret out the errant caulker, but things being as they are aboard ship - bewildering and lax, ever since most of the crew fled to Erebus - Irving has not found anyone up to the task. 

There is Gibson, who served the officers their breakfast as always, but Irving cannot very well send him in search of Mr Hickey. As a Christian, John lives in hope that men can redeem themselves; that all sins can be washed clean by the glory of the Lord and good honest work, but as a naval lieutenant of moderate experience, he is not naive, and won’t take the chance. 

“ _ Her father kill'd rats, and she sold sprats, all round and over the water _ ,” Magnus takes up his song once more as Irving leaves him, as though he has already forgotten the order to be quiet.

Manson has been mumbling the same distinctly  _ un _ -charming ditty for weeks now - months, perhaps - and the tune has now crawled into John Irving’s mind like a weevil; he finds himself humming it occasionally while counting the stores, or washing before bed. Singing is unavoidable in a ship, and cheap broadside ballads with crude verses are the most popular fodder; such doggerel appeals to the primitive nature of the men. Earlier in the voyage Irving made several attempts to pass around some of the more morally improving songbooks from the ship’s library, but he was roundly ignored. 

The fo'c'sle is eerily silent, with all of the remaining men on Terror - three lieutenant's, three marines, two physicians, ten men - either on duty or in sickbay. At least they ought to be. The hammocks have been stowed neatly and the deck scrubbed, all is in order, and yet nothing at all is correct. The dreadful slant of the ship is more apparent here than anywhere else, it makes Irving queasy even to look at, as though he is drunk, or feverish.

"Lieutenant Irving, sir," Thomas Hartnell startles him, appearing from the shadows and walking towards him.

"Hartnell. Have you seen Mr Hickey?"

"No, sir," Hartnell replies, his voice adopting an uncharacteristic edge, "I should say not. He and I do not keep company any longer, sir, I can promise you that."

Irving almost flinches to be reminded of that night. Hartnell appears to be helpful, mindful of his duties, but he has colluded with Hickey before. "What are you about, then? I believe you are on watch, Mr Hartnell."

"Yes, sir," Hartnell raises a pewter can, the contents trilling inside, "I was sent down for whale oil, sir, the lamps on deck are low."

"I shall be confirming that with Lieutenant Little."

"...Lieutenant Hodgson has the watch, sir," Hartnell says carefully. “It is Thursday.”

"Of course. I shall be checking with Lieutenant Hodgson."

"Aye, sir," Hartnell replies warily.

Irving makes a point to step aside, allowing Hartnell to pass. He lifts his gaze above the AB’s head as he leaves. He knew it was a Thursday, there was no need for Hartnell to mention it. 

“Hullo Tom,” Manson booms in the galley.

“Good morning, Magnus,” Hartnell replies, lightly, “mind how you go with that mop.”

Irving proceeds forward, he will search every inch of the ship if he has to. As he climbs down the ladder to the orlop, he can still hear Magnus’s fading bland murmurings, “ _ and the gentlefolks, they all bought sprats, off the pretty rat-catcher's daughter… _ ”

They could do with a rat catcher aboard, never mind his daughter. Irving is reminded of Manson’s refrain most particularly whenever he hears or sees a rat, and even in the bleakest midwinter, that is far too often. His boots hit the deck of the orlop and he is sure he sees three or four scamper away, into the long crooked shadows.

There is a ship's cat, and traps have been laid often but still they abound, and prove very troublesome. They smuggle themselves aboard in the various packages of provisions and stores, and no vigilance will extricate them, they are a plague as old as the earth itself.

On _HMS_ _Edinburgh_ , in which Irving sailed for a year before leaving for Australia, the creatures were so numerous that every evening the boys would sit on the coamings of the twix’t decks main hatchway, fishing for rats like anglers on a riverbank. They would twist oakum around their bait and send down a line for the rodents to gnaw on. Once they did, the fibres would tangle in their sharp yellow teeth, and in this manner the boys drew them up screeching, pink fleshy tails squirming. It was all thought to be great fun; the boys would laugh and toss them at each other. 

(Seamen are naturally indolent and filthy, and are merely infants as to discretion in everything that regards their health.)

The vermin thrive in every possible environment, and even here, while the men's numbers shrink and rations are reduced to scant mouthfuls, the rats seem to multiply by the week. Like the crew, they boarded  _ Terror _ at Woolwich - or at least the grandparents and great-grandparents of those now nesting in the frigid hold. Entire generations must have been born, lived and met their ends on Terror in the past three years. That is a queer notion, one which disturbs Irving even more as he makes his way deeper into the ship, searching the carpenter's store next for some sign of Mr Hickey.

Mr Honey is sitting on his stool, leaning back with his arms folded puffing his pipe, in idle conference with Mr Darlington, who is leaning against the workbench. Tools lie unemployed on the tabletop, the scent of old timber is stale and dusty. There is only a single candle for light, almost burned all the way down, a puddle of pale wax oozing over the pewter dish it sits in. The two men were laughing about something, Irving heard them as he approached, but the moment he was in view of them they stopped.

Mr Honey sits up straighter, but he does not stand, and he does not put out his pipe. 

"Lieutenant Irving, sir," he greets John with a half-hearted brush of his forelock which Darlington mimics with even less vigour.

"Mr Honey, Mr Darlington," Irving nods to them both. "I am looking for Mr Hickey."

"Pah," Darlington grunts, sucking his teeth, making a repugnant smacking noise in the wet pockets of his cheeks.

"You do not know where he is?"

"Hard enough to get the little gobshite to report for duty, you've no hope of finding him at all when he's off watch."

"That is simply not good enough, Mr Darlington."

"Tell it to the captain why don’t yer," Darlington chortles, "p'raps he'll flog him again."

Mr Honey tuts paternally, shaking his head at the caulker, "we've not seen him, Lieutenant Irving, sir," he says, with a note of sympathy in his voice which Irving finds abhorrent. "But we'll be sure to tell him you were looking for him, if we do."

"There is no smoking permitted anywhere on the ship but the fo'c'sle, Mr Honey, and well you know it."

"Aye, sir," the carpenter nods, dutifully putting out his pipe. 

"Another thing," he says, fixing both men with a look, "there are rats all over the ship."

"Aye, sir," Mr Honey nods again, his eyes gleaming with polite good humour, "that there are."

"You have traps, I presume? You ought to see to laying some."

Of all the discomforts of naval life, Irving considers the vermin to be the most harmful. To ships the rats are a great nuisance, destroying not only the stores but - perhaps urged by the continual noise of the water - will sometimes eat their way through the timbers, causing leaks, which it is supposed has proved fatal for many vessels. The carpenter and the caulker must understand this much, at least.

"As you please, sir," Mr Honey says peaceably. 

Darlington is trying not to smirk as Irving turns to leave.

He is not five paces away from the workshop when he hears them whispering - the ship is so quiet now that at night he fancies he can hear conversations taking place on other decks, it keeps him awake.

"Lay traps he says," Darlington gripes, his distinctive nasal whine barely tolerable even when he is being obedient. "What does he think that will achieve?"

"Ship's done for," Honey responds blithely. "She'll be more oakum than oak by the time we see summer - if we ever do."

"May as well let the rats have her."

"Ought to mind yourself, Thomas, bringing up the captain like that," says Honey.

"What's that god-botherer going to do, eh? Captain's drinking himself into his grave, everybody knows it. And I'll tell you what - every one of them Nancy lieutenants is shitting themselves."

The sound of a match being struck is followed by the scent of tobacco which stalks Irving as he progresses further forward, towards the next hatch where a very faint light drips down onto the pitch dark orlop, lighting the rungs of the ladder. Irving curses himself for not thinking to bring a lantern. He ought to go back for one, perhaps, but feels he must proceed now he has begun. The air grows colder, the shadows thicker the further he moves into the ship. He does not have to see the rats now to be certain they are there; he can hear their tiny feet, their teeth constantly chewing at the inside of the bulkhead as surely as the ice squeezes them on the outside. This is their domain and they do not run from him.

He is barely halfway along the passage when he’s sure he sees movement on the ladder ahead- not a rodent but a man, the shape of a body moving down into the oily blackness.

“You there,” he calls. 

The man stops on the last rung and turns. 

He moves slowly, like liquid, his features shrouded, his expression unclear. Irving cannot make out his eyes, but he knows himself seen. “Stop,” Irving says, “come here.”

The man turns away again, and like vapor seems to dissolve into the blackness of the orlop, disappearing in the opposite direction. Irving strides quickly along the deck to give chase, but he cannot see anything, as he reaches the hatch the man came down, the darkness seems to take on a new dimension, filling the hollow ship like smoke.

“Sir?” 

He starts at the voice above him, unnervingly close, and blinks wildly up at the gaunt, ghostly face of William Gibson. The steward is peering down through the hatch, his watery eyes narrowed with apparent concern.

"What are you doing here, Mr Gibson?"

"You asked me to fetch you a lantern, sir,” he raises it, as evidence, the light flashing directly in Irving’s face, causing a smouldering burst of light to burn his eyes and dredging up the headache he has been suppressing for days, “only by the time I had laid hands on one I could not find you again. Manson said that--"

“--give it here, Gibson,” Irving reaches up, impatiently. Gibson squats low and reaches down, the knuckles of his boney hand grazing Irving’s as they pass the lantern between them. Once John has it, he holds it out, casting a light along the passageway to dispel the shadows. He can see no trace of anybody. “Who came down this ladder before you?” He asks Gibson, who surely saw the man.

“Before me, sir?” Gibson frowns again, his wrists resting on his bent knees as he leans forward into the hatch with the easy balance of a sailor. “There was nobody in the fo’c’sle sir, only Manson in the galley.”

Irving shakes his head, still straining eyes to see further into the blackness. "I am looking for Mr Hickey, do you know where he is?"

"Mr Hickey, sir?" Gibson replies. The frowning makes him look simple. Every man left on the ship is as brazen as Hickey or as soft as Magnus. "It isn't his watch."

"I am aware of that."

"If it is for caulking, then I believe Mr Darlington is--"

"It is Mr Hickey I am seeking."

“For what reason, sir?”

“That is none of your business, Mr Gibson, answer the question.”

"I have not seen him." Gibson remains squatting over the hatch. "Are you well, sir? We did not see you at breakfast. Genge thought you must be taken ill."

"You served me breakfast, Gibson, don't be insolent."

"No, sir,” Gibson shakes his head. “I kept your portion by, it’s heating on the galley stove, sir. Do you remember? I had just come from there when you asked for the lantern."

"Of course I remember." Irving snaps. “I do not have time for this, return to your duties, Mr Gibson.”

The steward straightens quickly, “yes, sir,” and walks away. Irving listens to his slow rolling gait on the timber overhead as each soft thud gently recedes. It is of no consequence  _ why _ he is looking for Mr Hickey. Surely the very fact that he cannot be found is reason enough to seek him out.

Returning his attention to the orlop, Irving raises his lantern once more, and is rewarded with the high pitched hissing of the rats he has disturbed. They scramble over his boots as he continues boldly forward, the lantern illuminating only a few paces ahead of himself as he goes. 

There were worse things than rats when he was on the  _ HMS Belvidera _ , in the West Indies. The glacial vacuum of the Arctic has at least spared them from insects and reptiles, but the humid heat of the caribbean was a breeding ground for infestation. Mice, mosquitoes, locusts, flies, moths, cockroaches, centipedes, scorpions and more - day and night, in every conceivable nook and crevice of the ship, attacking the crew in every possible manner. 

Their hiding places were numberless; in the hold, the interstices of beams and timbers, even the provision-casks. It was impossible to eject them once they had lodged themselves in their covert abodes; the crew were disturbed in their beds, their blankets riddled; they were bitten, blistered and stung. He still remembers the lice crawling through the seams of his clothes. 

Cockroaches were particularly foul, flying about confusedly in the night, darting in their faces, and even extinguishing candles. Clouds of the creatures swarmed the  _ Belvidera _ wardroom; the walls appeared daubed with animated brown varnish, and the eggs they laid in the spines of the leatherbound books were like herring roe. Sometimes, even now, so far north of those fetid waters, Irving wakes in the night, arms flailing, skin writhing.

He begins to itch now from the remembering of it as he reaches the final hatch, which opens down into the hold, the belly of the ship. The space between his skin and his clothes torments him, the brushing of the fine hair on his arms transforms into the sensation of spindly legs, or probing, twitching antennae. He closes his eyes a moment to steady himself. It is not real, he reminds himself, it is a memory.

Those creatures are not here - but he is not alone, either. He is sure he can feel the presence of others before he hears it, the same sense an animal has for knowing danger is close. The air is tighter at the opening of the hatchway, a seething bubble of atmosphere, an almost visible cloud of restless vice. There is somebody in the hold. 

As he reaches the hatch he hears the panting, his ears prick with it and the crippling ache in his head seeps down his neck and across his shoulders. They are the rough, ragged breaths of manual labour, and could be taken for someone lifting something heavy or hauling a rope. Only Irving has heard these sounds before. Disgust coils in his stomach, bile rises in his throat, and he begins his descent with rage gathering on every rung. 

He reaches the deck with a heavy thud and spins, casting his light about, half expecting to see the culprits run scurrying into the shadows or evaporate into darkness themselves.

But no. A flash of red and white, and it is suddenly real, and solid, and present, the huffing, sighing breaths louder still. 

Two bodies lie entwined on their sides, curled into a bed of sack and rope. They are pressed so closely you could not pass the blade of a knife between them. A film of silvery sweat covers Hickey's pale skin - he is horrifyingly bare, naked as a savage. Irving can see the long twisting curve of his spine; can count every notch in it. He has one leg coiled around the waist of the marine, ankle hooked behind his knee to anchor himself as he rocks and squirms his lithe little body against his partner. The stark red stripes on his backside, weeks old, are still swollen and black in places, dreadful tracks cutting through the white flesh like furrows left by a plough, like badly butchered meat.

“You beasts!” Irving hisses, black spots swimming across his vision, every inch of his own flesh abuzz with the persistent creeping crawling of a thousand insect bodies. 

The man Hickey cleaves himself to raises his head, narrows his eyes at the lamplight Irving has cast as it catches the head of thick golden hair. Sergeant Tozer, still in his scarlet jacket, reaches an arm across Hickey to half sit up, drawing his broad thighs up between the caulker’s legs, driving his prick deeper, meeting Irving’s eyes across the deck as he does so.

“On your way, lieutenant,” he grunts in that dark earthy drawl, “there’s nowt for you here.” 

With that Hickey turns too, his ribs gleaming like whalebone as he twists, arms still tight around Tozer’s neck. His narrow red face, his cold blue eyes, so devilish Irving recoils as if bitten. He could swear that the wall behind them is moving, alive and heaving with something noxious. 

Hickey says nothing, but he laughs; an awful, yelping laugh, the grin so wide it could split his face. Tozer ruts into him and he groans, throwing his head back and exposing his pale throat, which Tozer presses his mouth to hungrily.

Irving backs up the ladder as quickly as he can, missing rungs and stumbling. The reach of the lamplight recedes as he does, drawing a blind over the horror he has witnessed. 

A rat sinks its teeth into the soft back of his hand as he grasps for the coaming. The pain sears, he yells and hurls his lantern at the creature - it hits the bulkhead and the glass shatters, plunging Irving into black obscurity as he drags himself up onto the deck, gasping for air.

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning - there's a lot of graphic, creepy insect imagery in this, as well as some unpleasant rat stuff.
> 
> Pretty unfair Mr Honey and Mr Darlington don't have character tags, they're really the stars of this story.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
